Question

I have a textbox that should accept datetime formats only. I am not sure how to convert this in MVC. I also want to know how to rearrange to a “yyyyMMdd” format, which is what needs to be passed.

<%=Html.TextBox("effectiveDate") %> 

My controller has nothing :X

public ActionResult Index()
{
     return View();
}

I know I am missing something… what is it?

I am not worried about entering a bad date right now… I just want to get the conversion concept.

Answer 1

For a strongly-typed model:

<%= Html.TextBox("effectiveDate", Model.effectiveDate.ToString("yyyyMMdd")) %> 

If it’s not a strongly-typed model (i.e. you have it in the ViewData), try this:

<%= Html.TextBox("effectiveDate", 
    ((DateTime)ViewData.EffectiveDate).ToString("yyyyMMdd")) %> 

To demonstrate using the second method, change your controller code to this:

public ActionResult Index()
{
     ViewData("EffectiveDate") = DateTime.Now;
     return View();
}

Make sure you check out the NerdDinner tutorials at http://nerddinnerbook.s3.amazonaws.com/Intro.htm